THE RUSSIA COMPANY	327
nearest and aptest ot all other ; and also for that you have
already taken it in hand " x. In the reign of his successor
the project took shape, when in 1553 a body of London
capitalists provided six thousand pounds to fit out an expedi-
tion for the ' discovery of the northern part of the world'2.
Three ships were sent out under Sir Hugh Willoughhy and
Richard Chancellor: two suffered disaster and the third
under Chancellor made ' the discovery of Russia '3, whose
ruler received him at Moscow and promised freedom of
intercourse for English merchants4. The promoters of the
voyage were rewarded for their enterprise with a charter of
incorporation in 15555. Under the title of ' Merchants
Adventurers of England for the discovery of lands . , . un-
known ', they were constituted a perpetual fellowship with
a governor—the first was Sebastian Cabot—four consuls
and twenty-four assistants; and they were invested with
the exclusive right of trading to Russia. The position of
the Company was fortified by a grant of privileges in the
same year from the Tsar6, who gave English merchants
liberty to trade within his dominions, immunity from taxa-
tion7, and jurisdiction over their fellow-countrymen.
A decade later, as a result of the activities of the inter- Legal
lopers at Narva8, parliamentary sanction for the Company
was obtained—one of the rare occasions on which a chartered
company derived its legal status from an Act of Parliament.
The Act of 1566 confirmed the Company's monopoly and
changed its title to ' The Fellowship of English Merchants
for Discovery of New Trades '. Three provisions of the Act
are noteworthy. The first, ' for the better maintenance of
the navy', restricted the Company to the use of English
ships ' sailed for the most part with English mariners *: the
second, in the interests of the cloth-finishers, prohibited the
export of cloth unless dressed and dyed : the third gave
1 Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations (ed. 1903), ii, 161.   (The date is
1527-)
a Ibid,, ii. 240.	3 Ibid. ii. 249.	4 Ibid. ii. 271.
5	Printed in ibid. ii. 304 seq.
6	Ibid. ii. 297 seq.; Hist. MSS. Comm. Bath, Hi. 149.
7	Subsequently they paid half the customs paid by other foreign traders:
State Papers Foreign, 1585-1586, pp. 54-55.
8	Infra, p. 334-